Cuts to Higher Education Shortchange California's Future

When I went to Cal State Hayward in the late 90's, I couldn't understand why anyone went anywhere else. Small classes, great teachers, and a student body who were passionate and excited to be there. We all worked, many had kids, most were the first in the family to go to college. We were tired, bedraggled, and usually late to class but we were in love with this new life of learning.

I worked as a tutor in the afternoons and as a waitress on the weekends. I paid each quarter as it came, maybe $400 dollars tuition and $200 more on books? I was able to pay my way through college, five years and a double-major, on two part-time jobs and a Cal-Grant. And after graduation I had the freedom to do exactly the work I wanted without the crushing burden of massive student loans.

And to me, what's happening at the CSU is about more than just the kids who can't get in due to budget cuts or will have to drop out because they can't afford the fees. Its about whether we live in a society where kids from working class families can have any hope of finding greater opportunities than their parents had. Without an accessible state school system creating a bridge to the middle class, California will increasingly be a land of the haves and have nots.

How is it that in the great state of California, we cannot provide for the most basic needs of our children? How is it that we cannot reward kids who have done everything right, overcome tremendous hardship, and beat the odds with a decent and affordable education?

But these days, looking around at the California that my little boys will grow up in, what I see are "dream killers." Politicians who will cut off a lifeline to needy families, but won't even allow Californians to vote on tax extensions. They will fight to preserve corporate tax breaks, even while eliminating college opportunities for tens of thousands of students.

We cannot allow them to kill the California we believe in. The dream of every family, the reason every immigrant comes to this nation, the goal that parents scrimp and save and sacrifice for is for the next generation to have it a little better. It is up to us to make that dream a reality.